


Star Crossed

by Piper_Emerald



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/F, Glimmer and Adora being good supportive friends, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, because I love Glimmer, sort of cannon compliant, sorta - Freeform, star crossed lovers cliche, the name of your soulmate is written on your arm in Fist One's language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 15:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17449382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piper_Emerald/pseuds/Piper_Emerald
Summary: Adora had the blue mark on the inside of her arm for as long as she could remember. Catra and her had once decided that some day they'd find out what their marks meant, but, like all the other promises they'd made to each other, that shattered when Adora left the Horde.Soulmate au where the name of your soulmate is written on you in Fist One's language





	Star Crossed

Adora had the blue mark on the inside of her arm for as long as she could remember. For most of her childhood she hadn’t had a reason to question it. Like most things that she took for granted, it was Catra who brought the significance of her mark to her attention.

There hadn’t been anything special about that day. They’d just finished a training session and had come back to their sleeping area to change into clothes that didn’t reek and stick to them. This was one of the rare times where Adora and Catra were alone in the large room. Adora liked these moments, they were the only ones where she felt she could let her guard down and just breathe.

Once she’d dumped her old clothes in the laundry bin, Adora let herself fall onto her bed. Her gaze drifted toward Catra in time for her to notice a smaller, different blue shape of lines on her friend’s collar. It was just low enough to be covered by her shirt.

“What?” Catra gave her a pointed look when she caught Adora staring.

“Nothing.” Adora had tried to tear her eyes away, but it was as if the mark had locked onto her.

“Okay,” Catra drew out the word. “It’s not that weird, you have one too.”

Adora glanced down at her own arm, even though the mark was covered by her shirt sleeves. Her mark was always covered, the uniform she wore made sure of that.

“How did you know?” Adora asked, her hand subconsciously touching the spot.

“I’ve seen it.” Catra rolled her eyes. “We change in the same room all the time, stupid. You don’t exactly try to hide it.”

“Right.” Adora looked back up at Catra in time to watch her cover the mark with shirt. Catra let out a sigh and plopped herself next to Adora on the bed.

“What do you think they mean?” She asked.

“What?” Adora turned to her.

“The marks,” Catra stated.

“What makes you think they mean something?” Adora asked her.

“Because,” Catra shrugged. “You have one, I have one, theres gotta be something behind them.”

“We could ask somebody,” Adora suggested.

“Right,” Catra laughed. “I’ll just waltz up to Shadow Weaver and tell her that I really want to know what this weird blue thing on my neck means.”

“We could ask someone else,” Adora nudged Catra’s shoulder. “Someone who doesn’t hate you.”

“Nah,” Catra leaned back on the bed. “The people here don’t answer things like that.”

“Well, then we’ll have to find out on our own,” Adora decided. “Together.”

“Right,” Catra smiled. “We’ll do that. Someday.”

“Promise?” Adora held out her hand.

“Promise,” Catra grinned as she grasped it with her own.

After that Adora didn’t think much about the marks. They became one of the many little promised that tied her and Catra together—the promises that made up a bond she’d once thought was stronger than any force. Back then, she had no way of knowing how simply it would all be shattered.

Living in Bright Moon took some getting used to. Everything was different, and there were times where, despite everything, she found herself missing the life she’d had before. Still, she was grateful that even that quiet melancholy never made her question whether she had made the right choice. She was certain she was where she was supposed to be, she just wished that she understood why that made her heart feel empty.

Out of all the things that joining the rebellion and her new friends had brought her, Adora never thought that the answer to the question Catra had asked her back when they were children was one of them. She was in Glimmer’s room when it happened. She was trying to follow along with the story that Bow was telling them, while also mentally adding to the list of things she was going to have to later ask for clarification on.

Her eyes were scanning the room when they happened to land on Glimmer who was currently sprawled across her sofa. The way that she was lying made the hem of her pants ride up slightly, revealing a bright blue design on her thigh.

“You have one too?” Adora jumped up from the chair she’d been sitting on.

“What?” Glimmer started, looking up at her in confusion.

“That mark,” Adora pointed to her leg.

“Um, yeah?” Glimmer raised an eyebrow. “Everyone does.”

“Really?” That was news to Adora.

She’d thought that her and Catra were the only ones. She’d never noticed anything like that tattooed on the rest of her teammates. Then again, she couldn’t remember ever being close enough to them to have noticed in the first place.

“They don’t tell you about soulmates in the Horde?” Bow gasped, apparently connecting the dots.

“Soulmates?” Adora looked from Bow to Glimmer.

“That’s just what people call them,” Glimmer sat up from the couch. “The marks are supposed to turn blue when you meet the most important person in your life.”

“Mine has always been blue,” Adora touched the spot on her arm where the mark was covered by her shirt.

“That means you must have met your soulmate when you were really young,” Bow told her. He held out the inside of his wrist. “See, mine is still grey.”

“It doesn’t technically have to be your soulmate,” Glimmer gave Bow a pointed look. “Sometimes, like for my parents, it’s the person that you’re meant to be with romantically, but for a lot of people it’s plutonic, sometimes it’s even unrequited.”

“But that’s rare,” Bow cut in. “For most people it’s romantic. People say that the mark actually mean the person’s name in First One’s language, and that they somehow created the link so that they could find their soulmates.”

“Which makes it confusing for us now,” Glimmer crossed her arms. “Since the only way we can know is keeping track of when it turns blue and some of us aren’t constantly staring at our marks.”

“She’s bitter about it because she doesn’t know who made her’s change,” Bow whispered to Adora.

“That’s not—” Glimmer suddenly paused. “Bow!”

“Um, yeah, Glimmer?” He gave her a confused look.

“The writing is in First One’s language!” Glimmer sprung to her feet before teleporting in-between Adora and Bow. “Adora can read First One’s language!”

Adora watched Bow’s eyes widen with excitement.

“We can finally find your soulmate!” Bow exclaimed, all but dancing around the two of them. “Adora what does Glimmer’s say?”

Glimmer hiked her pants leg up enough for the blue design to be fully displayed. Adora focused on the lettering. She still didn’t understand how reading a language she didn’t know worked, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she could recognize the lines. Somehow they formed letters that melted into the language and alphabet that she knew.

_Bow_

“I can’t read it,” Adora blurted. “Sorry. It’s not working.”

“But you could read the door at that temple,” Bow reminded her.

“I know,” Adora knew she wasn’t a great liar.

Still, she wasn’t going to read Glimmer’s mark out loud with Bow in the room, not when she knew that his still hadn’t turned blue yet. They just said that sometimes soulmates could be unrequited. Adora didn’t want to be the one to tell Glimmer that she was fated to love someone who didn’t love her back, or Bow that his was destine to break his best friend’s heart.

“It’s okay,” Glimmer put a hand on Adora’s shoulder. “Maybe we’re not supposed to know what the marks mean.”

“Yeah,” Adora quickly agreed.

They let the subject go and for the rest of the day Adora tried to keep her mind off of wondering who’s name was written on her own arm. She didn’t want to look at it while Bow and Glimmer were around her, she could tell they barely believed her lie and knew that rolling up her sleeve to study her mark would give her away. That didn’t make it any easier to keep her mind off of it.

For as long as she could remember, her mark had been the shade of blue that it was now. That had to mean that she first met whoever her soulmate was back when she was too young to recall. It meant that they were in the Horde.

That made a pit form in Adora’s stomach. Shadow Weaver had taken her in back when she was a baby, there was no chance that she had met her soulmate before then. She told herself that this was okay. She had friends who cared about her, and a life that was finally her own. She didn’t need romance—even if she wanted it.

It was only that night when Adora was sitting on her bed that she dared to pull her sleeve over her elbow and expose the blue design. She felt her breath catch in her chest, but, somehow she wasn’t surprised—somehow she had always known that the name her eyes were scanning really was the most important person in her life.

_Catra_

A soft knock on her door pulled Adora’s eyes away from writing. Quickly, she pulled her sleeve back down. That absence of it didn’t stop the cold longing in her chest.

Longing for what? The girl she’d let behind? Adora had chosen to leave the Horde. She had chosen to do the right thing, and she still stood by that choice. She had made it clear to herself and everyone else that she wasn’t going to stand aside while others got hurt. She was better than that. She was a good person.

She just wasn’t good enough for Catra to come with her.

“Adora?” Glimmer called from outside the room. “Are you asleep?”

“No,” Adora called back. “You can come in.”

Not bothering with opening and closing the door, Glimmer teleported to the middle of Adora’s room, then to next to her on the bed. There was a nervous look on her face. That wasn’t something that Adora saw in Glimmer often. Glimmer was always so confident and bright, right now there was a dark haze around her.

“Hey,” Adora mustered a small smile. “Something wrong?”

“Can I ask you something?” Glimmer met her eyes now.

“Yeah,” Adora nodded. “What’s up?”

“Were you lying when you said you couldn’t read my mark?” Glimmer asked in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” Adora admitted. She’d promised herself that she would eventually tell at least Glimmer the truth. It was only fair to her.

“I thought so,” Glimmer’s hand made a fist in Adora’s bed sheets. “It’s Bow’s name, isn’t it? On my leg, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Adora uttered again. “I didn’t know if you wanted him to know. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Glimmer smiled now. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for protecting my feelings. Well, I guess both of our feelings.”

“Did you know?” Adora couldn’t help asking. “He said you had no idea who your soulmate was.”

“I had a feeling,” Glimmer sighed. “Okay, I guess I had to have known the whole time. I just didn’t want to accept it.”

“I’m sorry,” Adora wished that there was something else she could say.

“It’s fine,” Glimmer shook her head. “I can deal with it. I mean, he’s my best friend. That’s not going to change.”

“Do you want to tell him?” Adora asked.

“Not now,” Glimmer shook her head. “Not any time soon.”

“That’s fair,” Adora told her.

“I guess.” Glimmer closed her eyes. Adora realized that she was trying very hard not to cry. “What does yours say?”

Adora silently pulled up her leave again, as if the meaning behind the marking could have some how changed. Gingerly, she traced the lines that part of her wished she really couldn’t read. Maybe not knowing would have been easier.

“It says Catra,” Adora told Glimmer.

“That name sounds familiar.” Concern spread over Glimmer’s face.

“She’s the one we keep fighting,” Adora said bitterly. “I mean, it makes sense. For so much of my life she was the most important person to me. In a way, she still is. I wish I was that important to her.”

“You don’t know that you’re not,” Glimmer said softly. “Unrequited soulmates are supposed to be rare.”

“I asked her to come with me and she wouldn’t,” Adora winced. “She put the Horde before me. I can’t be her soulmate.”

Glimmer wrapped her arms around Adora. The hug didn’t warm the ice that had taken hold of her heart, but it made her feel a little bit less empty. For so long, the only person she ever hugged was Catra, but this didn’t feel like the fleeting embraces they’d stolen between training sessions, lectures, and punishments.

“That means we’re in the same boat,” Glimmer murmured. “At least we have each other.”

“Yeah,” Adora hummed. “We’ll make sure we’re never alone.”

“Promise?” Glimmer asked softly.

“Promise,” Adora repeated.

She didn’t tell Glimmer that all of the promises she’d made before had died that moment that she told Catra she couldn’t go back to what once had been their home.

They didn’t talk about soulmates after that. Adora was slowly able to stop herself from dwelling on the meaning behind the blue mark on her skin. In a few days, Glimmer seemed back to her usual, cheerful self. Occasionally, Adora would notice a flicker of sadness in her eyes. At those moments, she did her best to remind Glimmer that they were in this together.

“It’s okay if you want to talk about it, you know,” Glimmer told her one night. The sleepovers were starting to become a regular thing. This time Bow had gone home for the night.

“I know,” Adora sighed. “Thanks. I just, don’t feel like I have to.”

Because once Adora had gotten over the shock of the universe’s confirmation at her and Catra’s joined fates, nothing had really changed. Adora had always been in love with Catra. She had been ever since they were children, and deep down she’d know that her feelings hadn’t severed when she left the Horde. That was the problem with feelings, you couldn’t just turn them off.

But if there was one thing that Adora had learned from living in the Horde all those years it was how to solider on. Adora accepted that she loved someone who couldn’t love her back, someone who had declared herself her enemy. At least now, she understood all of that.

And then Catra let her go.

For some reason, Catra had given her sword back and let her and Glimmer escape, and as much as Adora’s mind was on finding a way to heal her friend she couldn’t shake the warmth that the idea of Catra maybe not hating her after all put in her chest.

She still wasn’t ready for all of the emotions that she felt when Catra appeared at the First One’s temple. Seeing every tiny, important moment of their lives together literally flash in front of her eyes was hard enough, without her breath catching every time their hands brushed—every time Catra got just a little bit too close.

It didn’t used to hurt like this. There used to be excitement, and the thrill of being this near to someone that she wanted so much, but now the only thing she felt was the dull pain of knowing that this could never be. Not anymore, maybe not ever.

It was that maybe that was driving Adora insane. Not knowing what was going on in Catra’s head was going to break her own. Wrestling with all the emotions that she’d felt as a child, and finally having the argument that some how Adora had known was building up between the two of them for their whole lives, made her snap.

As Catra was about to storm away from her, Adora reached forward and grasped the collar of her shirt, pulling it down until the blue mark she had only seen once in her life was fully visible.

_Adora_

“What are you doing?” Catra shouted.

“It says my name,” Adora uttered. She felt like shock had completely seised hold of her. “I’m your soulmate.”

Then Catra was shoving Adora away, breaking her hold on the collar—not that it mattered now that the meaning of the mark was violently echoing in Adora’s mind.

“You need to start making sense,” Catra all but growled out. “Now.”

“It’s a long story,” Adora stammered. Her brain furiously rewriting every moment, every encounter, they’d had since she left the Horde. All this time, she had still been the most important person to Catra. “But I can read your mark.”

“No,” Catra visibly stiffened. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m not lying, it says my name,” Adora took a step closer to her. “Just like how mine says yours and—”

“Your's does _not_ say my name,” Catra hissed. It took a second for the understanding in her voice to sink in.

“You know what they are,” Adora felt stunned for the second time.

“What?” Catra’s eyes widened.

“You’re not questioning why it would say your name or what that even means,” Adora knew she was right. “You’re just getting angry, because you know that we’re—”

“We’re not anything,” Catra crossed her arms. “And yeah, Force Captain Scorpia’s a princess, she told me what they mean. So I guess that’s one of the many promises you failed to hold up.”

“Catra—”

“Can we just focus on getting out of here?” Catra snapped.

“Mine does say your name” Adora pressed. “I wouldn’t lie to you about it. You know that I wouldn’t.”

“No, Adora,” Catra’s voice was cold now. “I don’t know anything about you, anymore. Don’t you get that?”

“Well, you could actually listen!” Adora shouted. “And not act like me leaving was about you.”

“Oh, that’s great to know,” Catra laughed. It sounded broken and venomous. “My best friend that I’ve only been in love with since I can remember, who is apparently my soulmate, just abandoned me, but at least it’s not about me!”

“You’re in love with me?”

“Shut up,” Catra sneered.

“You could have come with me, you know?” Adora took hold of Catra’s hand. “You still can. Catra, I—”

“I don’t want to,” Catra pulled away from her grasp again. “I want to stay in the Horde. Don’t worry, it’s not like that’s about you.”

And then Catra was storming away from her and whatever chance Adora had or never had of getting the woman that she loved back was gone. What might have been hours or minutes later, when she was hanging for her life and Catra appeared before her, Adora finally felt her heart break.

They were never going to be on the same side. There was always going to be this between them.

“I’m sorry.” Adora needed to say it. Even if she still wouldn’t change leaving, even if she’d never meant to hurt Catra, even if this was how it was always going to fall out, she was sorry.

“I’m sorry too,” Catra said softly.

“I love you.” Adora didn’t know if she’d get the chance to say that again.

“You know what, maybe we are soulmates,” Catra shook her head. “Maybe you do love me back. Maybe all of this wasn’t supposed to happen, but you know what, that doesn’t matter.”

Catra bent down and reached over the ledge. She grasped Adora’s arm and pulled her up, so that she was just close enough for them to see each other at eye level, but not enough for Adora to be able to pull herself to safety.

“Because I am never going to be enough for you, you’re never going to put me first,” Catra said. “And now I’m not putting you first either.”

“Catra, wait don’t—”

Adora’s words were cut off by Catra’s lips meeting her own. She closed her eyes and kissed her back. She kissed her even though she was so close to losing everything, she kissed her even though this wasn’t going to change anything, she kissed her even though this was never going to happen again. Adora kissed Catra because she loved her, and at least now she knew Catra loved her back no matter how star crossed their fate was.

“Goodbye, Adora.” Then Catra let go.


End file.
